By Bhavna Patel
Walking through the neighborhood today, you would find it
hard to believe that a few decades ago, Curry Hill went by a different
nickname: Little Armenia… Armenians began to arrive in the state by the
mid-19th century. Many of those who came were educated, paving careers in
business and medicine. Shortly after the 1894-1896 massacres of Armenians by
Sultan Abdul Hamid II in Ottoman Turkey, Armenian immigration to the United
States increased. According to the U.S. Bureau of Immigration figures, from
1899 to 1931, 81,729 Armenian immigrants entered the U.S. From the Hamidian
massacres to the years after the Armenian Genocide, there was a stream of
Armenian immigration to the United States. As with many immigrants during those
years, the first glimpse of their refuge was Ellis Island. Exact numbers from
the influx are difficult to determine. Barry Moreno from the Ellis Island
Immigration Museum says, “Prior to 1899, Armenians would only have been
recorded by their nationality. Thus most of them would have been recorded as
Turkish.” According to the U.S. Bureau of Immigration figures, from 1899 to
1931, 81,729 Armenian immigrants entered the U.S.; seventy percent of whom
entered through Ellis Island at the Port of New York.
***
Near Manhattan’s Murray Hill lies a go-to spot for Hindi
movie rental shops, paan vendors and grocery stores catering to the South Asian
community. There, the aroma of Indian spices waft through doors and on to the
streets of Lexington Avenue, near East 28th Street, a neighborhood informally
termed “Curry Hill.”
By 2000, Indians became the third-largest population of
foreign-born residents in America, many of whom settled near Murray Hill, a
district which lies between East 34th Street and 42nd Street, through Madison
Avenue and East River. The area is named after the mercantile Murray family
who, in the mid-1700s, migrated to New York from North Carolina and briefly,
Pennsylvania. Since then, the area has experienced many cultural transitions.
Walking through the neighborhood today, you would find it
hard to believe that a few decades ago, Curry Hill went by a different
nickname: Little Armenia.
Armen Marsoobian, now a philosophy professor at Southern
Connecticut State University, recalls there existing at least three Armenian
restaurants in the area, one he remembers was Balkan. “We would pass them as we
walked from the subway station on Park Avenue and East 28th Street to the
[Armenian St. Illuminator’s Apostolic Cathedral] church,” he says.
While Balkan and the other restaurants Marsoobian
remembers no longer exist, at one time, they were quite popular.
* * *
Armenians began to arrive in the state by the mid-19th
century. Many of those who came were educated, paving careers in business and
medicine. Shortly after the 1894-1896 massacres of Armenians by Sultan Abdul
Hamid II in Ottoman Turkey, Armenian immigration to the United States
increased.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Immigration figures, from
1899 to 1931, 81,729 Armenian immigrants entered the U.S.
From the Hamidian massacres to the years after the
Armenian Genocide, there was a stream of Armenian immigration to the United
States. As with many immigrants during those years, the first glimpse of their
refuge was Ellis Island. Exact numbers from the influx are difficult to
determine.
Barry Moreno from the Ellis Island Immigration Museum
says, “Prior to 1899, Armenians would only have been recorded by their
nationality. Thus most of them would have been recorded as Turkish.”
According to the U.S. Bureau of Immigration figures, from
1899 to 1931, 81,729 Armenian immigrants entered the U.S.; seventy percent of
whom entered through Ellis Island at the Port of New York.
Because many families became separated during the death
marches, those who found their way to America often “consisted of single
individuals, orphans, and chance groupings of individuals who banded together
for security and mutual support,” according to an article titled Armenians in
America written by Dennis Papazian, professor emeritus from the University of
Michigan at Dearborn.
In many ways, America became a meeting place for those
who had lost track of one another.
According to Papazian, “Armenian newspapers in America
were filled with advertisements placed by people seeking knowledge of the
whereabouts, or the fate, of family members and friends.”
The frayed community settled in a part of lower Manhattan
that came to be known as Little Armenia.
“In the beginning of the 20th century, there were rug
merchants on Madison Avenue to Fifth Avenue, from 34th Street to 23rd Street,
and they dealt with wealthy customers,” explains Paul Sagsoorian in his piece,
“Growing Up as an Armenian-American in New York City Between the Two World
Wars.”
“Little Armenia” was easy to get to from all directions,
and affordable – the fare was only five cents at the time. Sagsoorian notes
about that period, “There were four elevated trains, two subway lines, one on
the east side, and the other on the west side. Trolleys ran north and south on
the main avenues, while buses and some trolleys ran east to west on the
crosstown streets.”
* * *
Arpine Dod, 77, grew up in the Bronx and then Queens, but
she frequented Little Armenia regularly as a child. Being newcomers to the
state, there was a sense of otherness that many felt. The community became an
extended family.
One of Dod’s 86-year old Armenian friends grew up on East
25th Street. “She would tell me mothers never had to worry,” says Dod. “They’d
let their children play unattended until nightfall. Everybody knew everybody.
It was a very close community.”
Dod’s father, Michael Kahayan, and his family emigrated to
the US from Iran in 1921. Kahayan was an intellectual and he was
business-savvy. He also had an artistic touch and decided to set up a shop on
East 27th Street and 3rd Avenue called K Michael Signs. He later also took over
his brother’s business which he called MKahayan Imported Food Store, once
located on 211 East 28th Street.
Kahayan imported spices from various countries, including
Egypt, Syria and India. Today easily found in one of New York’s myriad of
ethnic food stores, he sold items that were then rare like turmeric, tamarind,
and Za’atar.
“All the spices were kept in glass jars and sold by the
ounce or pound,” his daughter recalls. The store became popular. “He was very
personable, spoke five languages and was able to communicate with just about
anyone.” Dod’s mother, Zabel Donigian Kahayan, would make Armenian coffee for
clients, further adding to the store’s charm.
While Kahayan’s store supplied gourmet-style foods, like
beluga caviar, grocery stores like Anooshian and, later, Kalustyan, offered
Armenian items like stuffed grape leaves and more.
* * *
Among the few remnants of the once thriving Armenian
presence in Murray Hill are its churches; there are three located within the
same vicinity.
The oldest Armenian church in New York, Saint
Illuminator’s Apostolic Cathedral was founded in 1915 and many of its original parishioners
were genocide survivors.
Marsoobian’s father began attending the church when he
first emigrated from Syria shortly after the Genocide. Growing up, it soon
became Marsoobian’s tradition as well. “We went there from when I was a little
child until I went away to college. I still on rare occasions visit it for
hokehankists (memorial services) for members of the family,” says Marsoobian.
The Armenian Evangelical Church on 152 East 34th Street
completed its construction in 1923. Here too many Armenians feel a special
connection to the church because of traditions their relatives started. “We
have many congregation members who visit from New Jersey,” says Mesrop
Borekjian, 23, who works at the church. “This church existed before the New
Jersey church was established.”
Kirk Douglas would come to the store and ask my mother
how to make certain recipes. She had no idea who he was!
A third church in Murray Hill, the St. Vartan Armenian
Cathedral, on 2nd Avenue and East 34th Street, was developed in 1968. By this
time, however, many Armenians had already moved out of the neighborhood for
greater comfort. Many moved to the suburbs of the Tristate area (New York, New
Jersey, and Connecticut).
The churches would offer youth programs which many
children from the community took part in. Avedis Alashaian, 80, lived in Murray
Hill until the age of thirty. His father owned a dry-cleaning store on East
28th Street and Lexington Avenue. Much of what he learned about his roots was
through the church programs; he attended Armenian school three days a week.
Alashaian gladly learned Armenian folk songs and dances.
“Our ancestors brought their culture with them from Armenia, I was able to
learn it and now my three children can participate in it as well,” he says.
One of his favorite stores was on 3rd Avenue, between
East 26th and East 27th street. “There was a record shop there where they used
to sell Armenian albums. And in the back of the store there was a bookstore
that I also really liked. I remember it was owned by a Mr. Tashjian.”
Renowned oud player Ara Dinkjian, too, remembers this
store well. “Tashjian’s grocery and music store was my main source for 78rpm
records 50 years ago.” He adds, “Most Armenians had a collection of these
Armenian or Turkish records, which were recorded both here and abroad.”
Dinkjian now has over 5,000 records in his collection, which have become an
invaluable source of information for him.
Alashaian spent his summers going swimming with his
friends, or attending picnics and barbecues. Many social events also revolved
around music as their church would hold concerts and dances. It was through
these gatherings that Alashaian became good friends with the renowned musician
George Mgrdichian.
Originally from Philadelphia, Mgrdichian also lived in
New York for some time. “He was well liked by everyone,” recalls Alashaian.
Mgrdichian used to play the clarinet in their Armenian
band, Gomidas, but when their oud player was drafted into military service,
Mgrdichian had to step in. He taught himself how to play the oud. “I remember
he’d be in his basement practicing the new instrument all day and night,” says
Alashaian.
In 1933, after Archbishop Leon Tourian was assassinated
by a group of Armenians, the community was on the verge of a serious rift.
Alashaian believes it was music that gradually helped bring the community back
together again.
Going from neophyte to self-taught oud virtuoso,
Mgrdichian gained a following that came to watch him play at New York’s storied
Webster Hall. “The events were getting larger and larger,” says Alashaian. “And
it was bringing the entire community together.” Mgrdichian began releasing
albums and introduced the oud to American audiences.
The New York Times, in its obituary for Mgrdichian,
wrote, “At one concert with players from the Metropolitan Opera and New York
City Opera orchestras, Mr. Mgrdichian played his own arrangement of a Handel
oboe concerto on the oud, causing jaws to drop all around him […].”
Another famous musician on the New York scene, Onnik
Dinkjian, got his start in music through church gatherings. “I absolutely fell
in love with the music,” he said. “This is what brought me into the Armenian
Church, not necessarily as a religious person but as a lover of the Armenian
music,” he told the Armenian Weekly.
His son Ara Dinkjian’s passion for music developed in a
similar environment, at New York’s St. Illuminator’s Cathedral.
“It is where we had weekly rehearsals for the Kousan
Chorus,” the younger Dinkjian, now in his 50s, says of the chorus which both
his parents belonged to. Because Dinkjian grew up attending all of his parents’
rehearsals, “I unintentionally learned the vast repertoire of Armenian
classical, folk, and popular music,” he says. It is this music which continues
to be the foundation of his musical personality today.
Armenian music was also bringing differing communities
together. The album, “Armenians on 8th Avenue” for instance, contains
traditional Armenian, Turkish and Greek songs sung by Armenian-Americans in the
mid-1900s, which were recorded in night clubs and Greek-owned cafes on 8th and
9th Avenue.
* * *
Music was just one of the flavors Armenians brought back
to their new American homeland. At the time, foreign food was also an
unfamiliar concept to Americans, but it gradually grew in popularity. Dod
explains, “After the second world war, a lot of soldiers returned home from
serving in foreign locations. They would come by the store to taste foods that
were different to them and they liked it.”
Craig Claiborne, the influential New York Times food
journalist, would frequent the family store, as did writer William Saroyan and
actor Kirk Douglas. Dod recalls, “Kirk Douglas would come to the store and ask
my mother how to make certain recipes. She had no idea who he was!”
* * *
When Dod’s father became ill, he sold his store to a
shopkeeper. It was later converted into a Japanese restaurant and then, an
American bistro. Twenty-five years later, Dod and her husband paid a visit to
the property. “It was nice to go back but the attachment I once felt was gone,”
she admits.
The Armenian shoe repair shop next door to them had
become an Italian restaurant. And her favorite Greek bakery across the street
from their shop was no longer there either.
New York Times columnist, Joseph Berger writes, “While
Armenians have contributed mightily to the culture of the city — the painter
Arshile Gorky, the stage designer Rouben Ter-Artounian, the producer Ruben
Mamoulian and the composer Alan Hovhaness — there are fewer than 100,000
Armenians left in the city.”
Alashaian and his family now live in New Jersey. There is
a church just ten minutes away from him, yet he still makes the trek to Murray
Hill to visit his childhood church on East 27th Street. “My heart belongs in
Manhattan,” he says.
He is sad to realize that his old neighborhood is no
longer the same, but also feels a sense of pride. “Most of the new Armenians
who came here were blue-collar people. Many of them did not know the language.
They struggled, they had to work hard and raise their families.”
The philosophy for many families was, “if you don’t have
the money, you can look at the items but then, keep on walking.” Alashaian says
this motto worked. “Most of the community prospered and as things got a little
better in their lives, they turned around and moved into better neighborhoods.”
Dod has embraced the changes that “Little Armenia” has
experienced. She still visits Kalustyan’s specialty food store, one of the few
formerly Armenian-owned businesses remaining that bears its original name, to
buy her spices. Though the business has changed hands, there is a deli upstairs
where a Kalustyan family member remains busy at work.
In terms of the South Asian restaurants in her
neighborhood, Dod is thankful for the variety. “In fact, I had lunch at my
favorite vegetarian restaurant just the other day – Curry in a Hurry on
Lexington!”
BHAVNA PATEL Twitter
Bhavna is a writer and reporter from Montreal. She is a
graduate of Columbia University's School of Journalism. Find her on Twitter or
Instagram @_BPatel.
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